Supervisor Terra Lawson-Remer voted against delaying implementation of Senate Bill 43, which expanded conservatorship criteria, and was slated to have gone into effect on January 1, 2024. The decision to delay was supported by the other County Supervisors, which means Senate Bill 43 will not be activated for at least a year.

Supervisor Lawson-Remer used some of the discussion Tuesday to ask thoughtful questions to County staff and hospital leaders, including about the number of planning sessions held. Supervisor Lawson-Remer aptly pointed out that it was a foregone conclusion over 7 months ago that Senate Bill 43 was going to pass, and all involved should have used the lead-up time to plan, instead of strategizing and lobbying for delay.   

“Significant time and energy was spent finding the best ways to delay implementing Senate Bill 43,” said Supervisor Lawson-Remer, “but our region and most importantly the people in dire need of treatment, would have been better served if all those same people worked on an implementation strategy.”

“Many people tried all types of excuses to make me feel better about going along with the delay.  I don’t care if other counties delayed their implementation for two years. I don’t represent those other counties, I represent the people of San Diego County, and we should be striving to be better than the rest. 

“I joined the Board of Supervisors to move our region past decades of stagnant, status quo policymaking and for the better part of three years we have successfully done it with the actions we took in response to COVID-19, natural disasters and wildfires, and being one of the first in the state to implement Care Court – but today felt like we took a step backwards.  We can and must do better and act with urgency to meet this crisis.”      

Supervisor Lawson-Remer presented some suggestions to amend the policy to speed up implementation within 90 days, but her recommendation was not considered before the vote.

The vote was 3-2 with Supervisors Lawson-Remer and Joel Anderson voting no.   

 To read the policy as it was docketed, click here.